


Ariah-choo!

by Arnediad



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Balrog Sneezes, Crack-ish, M/M, Mairon is not a great doctor or nurse, Other, bad writing quality, if you bang your head against the wall maybe, mostly just wordplay, orc death, sort of romantic but not really, the author needing to prosify their slow descent into COVID insanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28343400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arnediad/pseuds/Arnediad
Summary: A mysterious [but mostly inconvenient] illness affects the residents of Angband.Mairon is unimpressed.Melkor is unhelpful, as usual.
Relationships: Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Kudos: 14





	Ariah-choo!

It began in the orc barracks.

If one could call them _barracks_ , in any case. Most of what anyone called anything in Angband sounded like something between a sneeze and hawking a giant loogie. Linguistically, it was functional, but perhaps not ideal for contaigional transfer and interchange. One could, for example, say they needed a _Shendrautsham, gogan, hanksar_ and an attendant several paces away would need to use a hankerchief. Such an effect was only multiplied with orcs, who seemed to salivate at a rate quite remarkable.

“Orcs art creations mine I holdeth in highest regard” Melkor declared atop his throne. Seated next to him, glaring at the snot-inundated, clearly-suffering sycophant not so very different from its normal state, Mairon made a disgusted noise.

“Arrow fodder” he groused into his wine glass. “I was under the impression that we had sequestered _’thou’_ and other formalities to anachronism, m’Lord.”

“You do your subjects a disservice in thinking so little of them” was the booming retort with such anachronisms discarded nevertheless. Mairon resisted the urge to scoff more out of a sense of self-preservation than a sense of agreement. “And do you not think this is a task deserving of your attention?”

_He did not._

Gritting his teeth to withhold a scathing retort, the redheaded Maia returned his focus to the forefront, and-consequently-to the subject at hand. He didn’t think little of orcs, not truly. One was hard-pressed to create something that they had initially thought little of, after all, and Mairon had had a large hand in the creation of the scaly, crawling beings that at times seemed to infest Angband down to its very core. That was their purpose, of course, outside of combat training; scale in overwhelming numbers and force.

It was impossible to train orcs to the degree of finesse that the Eldar possessed. What orcs lacked in skill they made up for in sheer magnitude. There were, of course, times when he questioned why they had not created more beings of intelligent capability, but there was nothing for it now, they did not have-and had not ever had-the luxury of time. That and the nature of Song in which one created such creatures as elves was abhorrent to all who dwelt in the ‘Iron Prison’, or so it had been dubbed.

Balrogs were clever enough, as were the other creatures that he and his liege lord had dreamt up when Utumno was still a thundering force of destruction. However, a great many of them had been destroyed in the Siege and those that survived did not breed with such expedient proclivity. Either that or they did not breed at all. Many of the ancient beings made by Their collective will were not Sung to cultivate numerous offspring. It hadn’t-at the time-seemed necessary, and having to bring to heel a massive force of already-powerful beings was a challenge they could not always afford to face.

Even the previously mentioned Valaraukar had their own demi-cultures clearly established, along with their social hierarchies. There were chieftains and underlings and so on; orcs were not much different, if slightly less formalized. As much as Mairon despised the concept of celebration and levity, such culture still had to be recognized and acknowledged in order to boost morale and encourage steadfast loyalty. Melkor believed in subjugance but he was also knowledgeable of the consequences of iron-fisted sovereignty. Never once had he deviated from his vow to be less restrictive than Manwë and less negligent and task-delegant than Eru. That did not-of course-mean that he was doting and simpering, but he was present and-when it came to inclusivity-righteously fair, and it was that that had drawn Mairon to him the most.

The present concern was not fairness, however.

Nay, the issue was that the orc before them was-in the simplest terms- _ill_. Not only was said orc ill, but there were apparently many orcs suddenly and inexplicably unwell within the barracks and they were at a loss of what to do. Just the mere terminology of infirmity among his subjects was baffling to Melkor and incredibly irritating to Mairon. Granted, they had not created orcs with immunity to disease in mind, but disease was not something that had a solid presence in the early years of Arda.

Maiar did not fall ill, it was simply unheard of. The terminology of _’illness’_ was subjective, of course. Many had thought Melkor ‘ill’ when he deviated from his assigned trajectory in order to pursue his own pleasures and interests, but this was a physiological illness. Said illness seemed to present with large amounts of mucus running out of the nose and an increased internal temperature. There were also spots. Non-mucosal spots of a fluorescent, greenish hue that Mairon could make neither head nor tails of.

His knee-jerk urge was to perform an autopsy.

He could not-unfortunately-do this, as there had been no reported deaths so far and while he had no qualms when it came to killing his own creations to discover what was wrong with them, he had learned that doing so made him deeply unpopular. Mairon did not-quite frankly-care at all about being popular, but he had discovered that being unpopular meant that he did not always glean the desired amount of respect amongst his subjects and so he had learned to refrain. This meant determining the source of the illness from a different purview, however; one he was unused to utilizing. Mostly because it required creating an anecdote, and while he was used to bandaging wounds, creating salves and thinking up creative ways to torture prisoners he was no medicinal apothecary. Angband was a place of military function, not a healing house.

“I suppose we will have to formulate some sort of hygienic protocol, my Lord” Mairon declared with great dubiousness as Melkor peered at the dilemma before them with what seemed to be a mixture of curiousness and disgust. “You don’t suppose this is another plot to subjugate you from within, do you?”

“As little as I think of my siblings, I do not think that they have the stomach to create such a sickness” Melkor replied, somewhat distractedly. “Nevertheless, I trust you to come up with an expedient solution to such an inconvenience.”

Mairon felt his lip curl in a kind of derisive resignation.

“Of course, my Lord” he replied, not bothering to keep the vitriol from his tone. “Such a task would be beneath you.”

There was the rustle of ‘fabric’ as the black form of his leige’s being coagulated somewhat-became less substance and more incorporeal-before gaining solidity once again...only to tower over him in front of his seat. Cold fingers grasped his chin and he resisted but a moment before meeting that cold, silver gaze with calm defiance; fire against ice, tundra and desert colliding to form a glass-like...howling and sliver-sharp vortex in the middle. The lips that kissed him were not-lips, not as mortals would consider them lips...and this too he resisted as long as he felt was appropriate before giving in.

“Quite the contrary” was the growling, scraping and yet beholden voice echoing in his ears even as Melkor disappeared to assimilate into the inky darkness of the throne room that was all around them. “‘Tis beyond me, and therefore exactly right for thee… ** _Rušuriniðil_**.”

Mairon did not call him back.

To do so would have been fruitless, regardless. Whatever ties held them together were based on not only their togetherness but their separation of thinking and being. This, too, among many things, he had learned over time. Rising from his seat, the flame-haired Maia thought for a moment before tilting his head upwards. The darkness that was He-who-was-his-Master-and-yet-not contorted on the ceiling for but a moment...gave forth a humming, dark-threaded sphere of acknowledgement before consigning itself to oblivion once again and he contented himself with that. He did not need the reassurances a younger version of himself might have required, nor did he feel the desire to prove himself; there was only a collective purpose. Still, as the dismally wretched orc proceeded to sneeze and spray what one could only assume was a highly contagious disease across the flagstones, he could not help but feel a bit uncertain.

* * *

The situation worsened.

‘Worsened’ in the sense that it was not long before half of their entire army of orcs was infected with the mysterious illness. Sanitation protocols had very little effect as orcs did not have the withwheral to follow them and Mairon sincerely did not have the energy to enforce said protocols on so many incompetent imbeciles. If he could not convince them of the necessity of hand-washing then there was absolutely no wisdom in sitting them all down in their miserable hovels and encouraging them to keep distance from those that were afflicted. As creatures of impulse, it was impossible to tell them not to copiously fornicate, and he had not necessarily expected his efforts in the area of disease prevention and control to produce any more positive results.

His ‘failures’ he brought to Melkor, who himself did not declare it so much a failure as an inevitability. Instead, the ruler of Angband merely asked him to keep the orcs away from the other ‘residents’ as much as possible. This proved difficult, because while orcs were fairly useless when it came to complex tasks, they did make up a great amount of Angbands task force when it came to the upkeep of the fortress. As it was, he did his best to weed out those who were in constant contact with those that were unwell, and replaced those suspected of illness with Balrogs.

This was not his brightest idea.

Balrogs were, for the purpose they were created for, extremely effective. They were excellent at killing and good with taking orders and doing what they were told. When it came to ‘housekeeping’, however, they were inordinately large and while willing, dextrously incompetent. Mairon ended up having to repair a good quarter of the throne room after a group of Valaraukar proved that buffing a suit of armor was an impossibility without the necessity of lava. As much as he loved iron and fire, there was a way and an order of things, and this was not way or order and melting slag was not decorous. Melkor, of course, found it all amusing; amusing in the way that communicated that while it was worthy of mirth in the moment, Mairon would still be expected to correct it.

Then Gothmog sneezed.

Sneezing, one would think, would not be a cataclysmic event. Certainly not one to file away in one’s memory as disastrous and traumatic, but that was what it was. Mairon had been-for what felt like the thousandth time-fielding complaint after complaint from the orc barracks behind the safety of a magical shield when the very foundations of Angband were rocked with what felt like an earthquake and a volcano simultaneously. It was the sort of situation where one was prone to think that there was an attack, really. Indeed, the upheaval was so great-with orcs and snot flying every which way-that the scarlet-haired Maia felt himself closer to a state of complete and utter panic than he’d been in a very, very long time. The Eldar had discovered a weapon, he surmised hysterically. A weapon utilized at the worst and most inconvenient of times that would dig Angband up by the foundations and throw them all into the abyss.

Piled under a mound of heaving, hacking, and groaning orcs it was the only thing he could come up with. He was uncomfortable, he was humiliated and not a little bit angry. So when Gothmog came barging in through the doors of the conference room trailing glowing, lava-filled strings of what he could only assume was balrog-ish mucus, his reaction of blowing up a good amount of the council table was warranted in his book. Granted, Gothmog was apologizing when he entered, but in the face of the damage and his state of physical being at the time, he didn’t think he was entirely over his head. Because for once in his life, he did not know what to do, and Mairon was painfully aware that his station in Angband-and by Melkor’s side-was due to his competence and capability. He was also painfully aware of what happened to those who became without function, and there was a part of him, shoved very deep down inside of himself, that was _afraid_ of being useless.

Gothmog’s sneeze heralded the beginning of a very long and painful series of events that mostly involved shutting the Balrogs in the dungeons when they fell ill and hoping the very foundations of the fortress didn’t come down on top of them. It was messy, it was irritating, but it also left them unquestionably vulnerable to any attack that would come their way at the current moment. Gone was Melkor’s levity regarding the situation. Instead, there was a sense of urgency to _fix this_ before it became totally beyond their control. In some ways, it seemed like such a time had already come and gone. There were deaths in the orc barracks; mostly those that were old and injured or in poor health otherwise. Such deaths allowed for Mairon to perform autopsies, and he developed some semblance of a Song that might fix things but the nature of it was that which he had left behind so long ago he did not entirely have the confidence in himself to Sing it properly.

_”Such doubts will only hold you back.”_

Melkor had said this to him in passing; a dark cloud making its way to the dungeons-presumably to converse with Gothmog-while Mairon rushed away to deal with yet another string of disease-related fatalities. He didn’t give the comment much thought-couldn’t, really-until things were as settled as they could be given the current circumstances. When he did, it initially perturbed him, because he had given no voice to the fact that he had developed any sort of Melody. But of course Melkor would know; Melkor had a way of knowing things without them being spoken or communicated any other way. This was particularly true when it came to him...his Lord seemed to know him on an intrinsic level and vice versa. In their togetherness they were not an assimilated force but a team, and it discomfited him as much as it secretly gave him comfort...mostly because it made him feel vulnerable.

To be seen was to be vulnerable...in his eyes.

“It is not akin to the songs that you taught me.”

Standing before Melkor in all his dark glory, Mairon confessed this in later days...when the deaths became of greater magnitude and he had begun to feel it an inevitability. Seated atop his throne, the Lord of Angband raised a dark, semi-corporeal brow that clearly encouraged him to go on.

“It is like those before” the redhead muttered. “A mixture, perhaps, of what Aulë taught me and what you did.”

He did not hate Aulë.

Not in the sense that some might have thought he did. Mairon had learned, as he had learned many things, that hate was an expedient energy; burning fast and bright like the forge but unable to temper like the slow roil of shaping molten steel. It was a waste of time. Melkor was different, however. And not just different but given to swing between extremes of outlook regarding tolerance. Such extremes would only strengthen in years to come, especially in question of the Silmarils...which would rob him of the great Vala he had come to love in ways both spoken and unspoken...understood and misunderstood. Now, however, there were days when his Lord could be open-minded, and days when he was close-minded and ungiving.

“Tell me, Mairon” Melkor rumbled. “Have I ever forbidden you from utilizing all your skill sets?”

“No, m’lord, but I know some of them displease y-”

“-It is not displeasure of your _skills_ ” was the swift interruption. “It is a displeasure of your _nostalgia_.” When he opened his mouth to argue against it, he found he could not speak. “You and I both know enough of you to know that you are wont to look to the past...sometimes more fondly than you ought.”

He wanted to deny it.

Staring into those silver, galaxy-ridden eyes, Mairon wanted to deny it, but he could not. It was true that there was no place he would rather be than Angband, but it was also true that he occasionally longed for the gentle tutelage he had once found comforting. Not because he did not admire and love and respect Melkor, but because there were times when Melkor felt as absent as he was present. When he was able to be subjective, he was able to acknowledge that Aulë had been much the same. One could not, reasonably, expect the love of a Vala to be the same as the love of a Maia. It was not a physical love, in some ways, for either of them; but the Valar were creators, and one of those creations was the Maiar. A thing of Song-love was not the same as physical love. And so he missed it; in the way one misses the concept of religion lost to the reality of life; of grief, pain, and death.

“Nostalgia will not help you” Melkor was saying, his voice gentled. “It did not help me. But used rightly, that which you learn from the past can strengthen you in the present.”

The tightness in his chest felt a little like the rivers of fire he used to thread through Aulë’s forge to feed into the roots of Arda...to give it life.

“You do not like to hear me Sing.”

Again, Melkor’s form dissipated...and again, it took shape before him...impossibly tall yet inchoately beautiful. The touch on his sleeve-against heavy gold embroidery as much a frippery of station as it was a standpoint of magnificence-was a not-touch...the fingers in the flames of his hair sought the blazing light given to him by Eru as much as they sought to anchor themselves.

“I do not like the orcs coughing all over the fortress” Melkor said matter-of-factly. “I do not like the Balrogs setting fire to my foundations every time they see fit to sneeze, and I do not like the bodies of my subjects piling up at every door.” As if on cue, there was the faint cacophony of an explosion and the walls around them rattled before falling still...dust descending in the wake of what felt like a small earthquake. “I do not like that you think I do not love you” his liege lord continued. “Even if in some ways that is true...for I cannot love you as another would love you...this you know and have known.”

In the eyes of the world there was little that Mairon did truly know...at least at that time.

As a being forged from fire and iron, his purpose was first to whoever commanded him; emotions, in their complexity, came later, and with encouragement from Melkor. Staring into the spiral-barr transposition of an iris...of a universe in a mind, Mairon only knew that he was, verily, tired of orcs sneezing all over the tapestries as well...and he knew his purpose, his value, and his commitment to their cause.

“But the statement that I do not like you to Sing” Melkor said blandly. “Is simply not true. You should put a rest to it, or I shall become very angry with you.”

Mairon resisted the urge to smile from ear to ear because it would have been below his station.

“I shall endeavor to do so.”

Over the next few weeks, the Great Plague of Angband-as it was so-dubbed-slowly bled away. The Song Mairon had fashioned was effective, but it needed to be Sung several times before its full effect took hold. And it was in the fashion of a forge-Song...in the roar of a blaze...the hiss of steam and metal...the grind of rock and stone and boulder...so it needed time to gather heat...to ring in that way that fine steel does…’till the ears seem to vibrate with it. Mairon had Sung such songs before, of course, and continued to when it came to forging weapons, but the use of it as a healing method was a novelty. And if, on occasion, an orc should mention feeling a bit stuffy in the head he needed merely to whisper a few stanzas under his breath for it to dissipate as if it had never been.

But the one thing he valued most, out of the whole ridiculous experience, was the recollection of Melkor descending the steps of the throne to stand next to him when he first began. Gathering the threads of fire within him to begin the transposition, Mairon was given pause when the dark-haired Vala did so, looking at him only once before nodding for him to continue. When he began, his Voice was joined by the Voice of another; only once, and never again. Melkor did not sing...as a rule. He had never asked him why, but to hear the thrumming, mountain-stream and treeline accompaniment to his own creation a single time was enough.

_It was more than enough._

**Author's Note:**

> _and-then-Gothmog-developed-whooping-cough-and-the-world-exploded._
> 
> this took a long time to write. I started this in February, so that should give you some idea. 
> 
> I will not be returning to this fandom to post any lengthy things for several years but may write little things here and there. when it comes to large projects I want to finish something before I post it and then just throw it all out, and i have several others projects lined up and in progress that I need to finish first. and hey, happy holidays. The initial plan was to make this sorta Christmasy but I have lost my Christmas spirit somehow. So I wrote about COVID @_@


End file.
